Wednesday, July 25, 2007

So this is a little late but oh well. I was out east again a couple of weeks ago with Billy Talent. We had a show in Toronto at the Molson Ampitheatre . This was the first time I have ever worked in an Ampitheatre and it was very cool. They are designed specifically for concerts and stage events...unlike a Hockey Arena which is designed for....well Hockey. The dressing rooms are nicer and are on a separate (secure) floor, the loading bay allows for ease of gear arrival and removal and what I found great was that the stage was about 8 feet off the floor, this helps stop stage jumpers. We arrived a day early to the venue to start pre-production. This helped the tech guys get the lights and sound in order and the band to check their instruments after their arrival back from Europe. Also for the first time ever Billy Talent used Pyro during their set. This got the band very excited as we had a bunch of small fireworks and a large amount of concussion powder for the final song of the set. One additional thing the band had to do on Thursday night was a "Game with Fame" event. This is set up by X-box and it has the entire band playing online against fans. In addition to the online play the band also got to play a bunch of different games set up around the room. At one point Ben (the lead singer) wanted a person to play a baseball game with and told me to play...I said "your the boss" and got paid to play video games...I told my Mom one day that would happen.Well the night of the show came and nothing out of the ordinary occurred...well nothing out of the ordinary at a rock show. Since this was a "home town" show we had a very large after show party of about 400 guests and the party went on until about 2:30am. Then we climbed onto the tour bus for the 9 hour drive to Quebec City. This time the band was nice enough to give me a middle bunk on the bus...which is by far the best bunk as it is away from the road noise of the lower bunk yet there isn't as much motion as the upper bunk. Needless to say I slept the best I ever have on a tour bus....well any bus. The next thing I knew I woke up in Quebec City..... to be continued.